Hagen Brody looks back on his time on City Commission

From restoration of the Bobby Jones Golf Complex to the Bay Runner trolley to comprehensive plan amendments intended to incentivize affordable and workforce housing, Hagen Brody looks back on the accomplishments of the city during his five-and-a-half years as a city commissioner. After stepping down from the dais on Monday following an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Sarasota County Commission, he discussed his time as an elected official during a Q&A with the Sarasota Observer.

Why did you become involved in local politics?

I've always had a draw to public service and trying to improve the community I live in, and having grown here only enhances my desire to make Sarasota a great place. I had a great experience as a child in Sarasota, and I wanted to ensure that future generations have a great community to grow up in like I did.

How is the city different from your childhood?

My grandparents moved here in the ’70s and it was very much a golf and fishing town. The natural beauty of Sarasota has been discovered. It was kind of a well-kept secret back then, but we've seen Sarasota become an incredibly desirable place for people to move. That’s really put us on a new trajectory, and we're still trying to come to terms with that and figure out what kind what kind of community we want to be because there's just no denying that people are going to continue to want to live here. That comes down to how we're going to manage that.

What progress has been made to manage that during your time in office?

We've made a lot of changes at City Hall in our management and management practices over that period of time. We have a much more responsive and professional city government than we had and it is well-positioned to deliver for the residents. We've made a lot of headway in dealing with long-standing issues when I came into office that had been lingering and festering for a long time.

"It's been really the honor of my life to serve the community in this capacity. We have a great community, an involved community, and even though we're divided on issues occasionally I always appreciated their involvement and attention." –former Sarasota City Commissioner Hagen Brody

What were those issues?

The big ones for me were the Lido Beach renourishment, which had been going on for decades, and also the Bobby Jones golf complex. We brought both of those to positive conclusions that are going to continue to be great assets. Not just those lingering issues, but we also made progress on important issues to the community like affordable housing, bringing online a number of new units in partnership with the Housing Authority through Lofts on Lemon. We also laid the groundwork through the comprehensive plan changes to create the framework for the next commission to really make headway on improving the housing options for working people in our community.

The  planning department was one of the casualties of the Great Recession when the city was forced to scale back services. You’ve spoken in the past about the commission having rebuilt that department. How important is that going forward?

I just think it is critical to the intelligent redevelopment of our community. They're now working diligently on affordable housing changes that just wouldn't be possible otherwise. Having professional planners who work for the citizens is important because these are tough issues, complicated issues, and you need people who have the education and experience in these areas in order to get the best result possible.

The redevelopment of the bayfront has brought significant new property tax revenue to the city, but it has also contributed to the attainable housing crisis. How has the city worked toward creating a balance between the two?

The first thing to understand is that what we have today is the product of our rules and regulations that have been in place. Some of it has produced positive change, some not so positive. Now is the time to reflect on what's been produced and ask, ‘do we need more of this or do we need to change course?' The affordable housing crisis in our community really has spoken for itself that we're not getting the spectrum of housing that either we had hoped for, or that we need. And so we’ve taken a critical look at our codes and rules and regulations and asked why haven't we produced this important part of that process? The direction we're going is a change for the better in that we'll be able to see more affordable units being produced not just through mandatory inclusionary zoning, but also through market rate units that are going to be smaller and more affordable than the large luxury units that are that are produced today.

The comprehensive plan amendments were among the most controversial issues during your time on the commission? How will they eventually result in more attainable and affordable housing?

The spirit of the amendments is going to not only add more affordable options for working people, but they're also going to improve the experience and the quality of life of the people affected by these changes whether you look at downtown where we really have an exclusionary zoning code now that only produces large luxury units — many of which are filled with part-time residents and are just unaffordable to our working class — to our commercial corridors that have just long been a problem. The North Trail and even along U.S. 41 in the southern part of the city are in need of redevelopment, and I think everybody understands that acknowledges that. Redevelopment can be a good thing if it's done right, and I think that that's what these these zoning changes will ultimately accomplish.

What was your thinking behind running for the County Commission?

A lot of these issues that we have in our community are broader than just the city limits. These are things that are not just our county, but our region has to deal with. I felt good about the trajectory of the city and where the city was at both internally at City Hall and externally, and I just felt that I could make a little bit of a broader difference in the county, but it didn't work out.

Second thoughts?

I try to not dwell on those types of decisions. I’m really just thankful that I got an opportunity to make a difference in the city.

Will you consider making another run for City Commission?

I am not running for anything in the foreseeable future. It's a unique experience, being in an elected position. I still have a desire to make positive impact in my community, but I can do that in other ways.

What are the important matters facing the new commission?

Redeveloping some of our downtown corridors like Main Street and improving those streetscapes is going to be really important to continue to allow our small businesses and restaurants to compete with other areas that are that are doing a great job. I think that affordable housing and workforce housing zoning text amendments is going to be an incredibly important moment in the future of our city. This next Commission is going to have to address and make some tough decisions. The performing arts center is another one that I think is going to be critical to the future of our arts and cultural identity.

If a new performing arts center moves forward, should the Van Wezel be preserved?

There are some folks who are trying to drive that discussion into it's either the Van Wezel or it's a new performing arts center, and I don't think anybody at City Hall is looking at it that way. I think we all want to see the Van Wezel as an architecturally significant icon of our community evolve, but also have a next-generation, top-tier performing arts center for the future. I've never looked at those as mutually exclusive. I think we have the bandwidth where the Van Wezel can be reimagined into something that offers something different, or can maybe house another cultural organization, but also have a flagship performing arts center that can accommodate top-tier entertainers and performances.

As a public investment, how does bringing top-tier performances here benefit the city?

Arts and culture brings up to $350 million of economic benefit to our community. Most of it is in the city of Sarasota. If we lose organizations, that benefit is diluted.

What was the most significant challenge of the past five years?

The biggest curveball we've had was COVID, and so when we talk about the future you don't know what the next big thing might be. I think having a city government that is able to address anything that comes our way is really the most important thing that we've done. One of the foreseeable possibilities is an economic downturn to some degree, and that's why getting our fiscal house in order and building up our reserves was so important.

When I look about at my time in office, a measure that I use is what issues were at the forefront when I was first elected, and you don't hear about those issues anymore because we really addressed them. When I was elected it was unfunded liabilities in the pension system. It was relationships between the city and county. it was homelessness, which you still hear about but we've made incredible progress there. Those lingering issues like Bobby Jones, a lot of that has gone away, and so it's new issues and new challenges that the new commission will be addressing.